Homemade Granola Bars

All my life, I’ve never liked granola bars—they were much too crunchy, nutty, fruity, and healthy for me.  By nature, I am much more of a junk-food person than a health-nut…I could eat hamburgers and fries and pizza every day.  Soooo, I really only ate granola bars when I was desperate…and even then, not very often. 

But since last summer, I’ve been working to change my diet.  Cutting out grains, dairy, and unhealthy sweets also cut out alot of the snacky-type things that I like.  And one can only eat so much fruit and plain nuts. 

Oh, what can I snack on??

These homemade granola bars have become my latest and favoritest snack.  They’re full of chopped seeds, nuts, coconut, and some dried fruit (and I like to add some chocolate too!)  And they’re so YUMMY!

Oh yeah, there’s the chocolate and coconut.

(Did I mention that I also used to not like coconut?)

What holds it together is honey and almond butter, heated together to make it pourable and mixable. 

Mix together the wet mixture with the seeds & nuts mixture…

…and press it into a pan. 

Lick clean the mixing spoon clean while you wait 20 minutes for the bars to bake… 

(No eggs or other such things that would make this unhealthy to eat raw! Score! ) 

…and then pull out a pan full of some pretty amazing granola bars!  

Now THESE bars I like! I think my taste buds have changed or something. 

A 9x13 pan makes like 24 bars or so, depending on how big you cut them.  I can’t seem to get them to cut into nice square bars very often, but it can be done!

One of these days, I want to try these bars with a combination of this pumpkin granola recipe.   Whatcha think?

By the way, my dad made these and said they tasted almost exactly like the super-pricey healthy bars you find in the health food store or grocery store.